Document Type

Journal Article

Publisher

Routledge

Faculty

Faculty of Education and Arts

School

School of Education

RAS ID

10271

Comments

This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of: Moore, W. M., & Hammond, L. S. (2011). Using Education Assistants to help pave the road to literacy: Supporting oral language, letter-sound knowledge and phonemic awareness in the pre-primary year . Australian Journal of Learning Difficulties, 16(2), 85-110. Available here. This is a preprint of an article submitted for consideration in the Australian Journal of Learning Difficulties © 2011 [copyright Taylor & Francis]; Australian Journal of Learning Difficulties is available online at: www.tandfonline.com with the open URL of your article, which would be the following address: http://www.tandfonline.com/openurl?genre=article&issn=1940-4158&volume=16&issue=2&spage=85

Abstract

Children with weak oral language skills are at risk of experiencing difficulty with early literacy acquisition. Intensive small group intervention during the preprimary year has the potential to improve children’s success in developing emergent literacy skills. Education assistants are a potentially powerful resource for supporting students at educational risk. In this study, education assistants at four schools were trained to provide a daily half-hour emergent literacy program to pre-primary students with low oral language skills. The program focused on developing phonological awareness, letter-sound knowledge and vocabulary using both explicit and in-context (embedded) learning activities. The students undertaking the program made significant gains on early language and literacy measures. Case studies are presented that illustrate the strengths and limitations of the intervention for children and schools.

DOI

10.1080/19404151003763029

Access Rights

free_to_read

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Link to publisher version (DOI)

10.1080/19404151003763029